Damon Runyon News

We reached out to our Damon Runyon current awardees, alumni, and committee members last week with the following message. We are sharing this message with the public because science is not insulated from the outside world and has always reflected the priorities and prejudices of the society it resides in. Racism and bias are not relics of a less enlightened past, but living, active forces that hold us back from scientific breakthroughs.

Damon Runyon Alumnus Ardem Patapoutian, PhD, of Scripps Research, was awarded the 2020 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience for his breakthrough discovery of sensory receptors that respond to pressure. This award recognizes outstanding achievement in advancing our knowledge and understanding of the brain and nervous system.

Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovator Rushika M. Perera, PhD, at University of the California, San Francisco, and colleagues at NYU Grossman School of Medicine have discovered that pancreatic cancer cells can appropriate an internal waste removal process to dispose of tags (MHC-1) on their surfaces which trigger the immune system to destroy tumors.

The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation has named five brilliant doctors with novel approaches to fighting cancer as Damon Runyon Physician-Scientists. Grants totaling $2.3 million will provide them the opportunity to gain skills and experience in translational and clinical research.

Since COVID-19 cases escalated to pandemic levels worldwide, Damon Runyon scientists are contributing to the unprecedented global effort to stop the disease by investigating how this specific coronavirus enters human cells, developing more efficient testing and searching for a treatment. 

The first class of Damon Runyon Quantitative Biology Fellowship Awardees launched their research in novel directions that may lead to the next breakthroughs in cancer research. Nine brilliant young scientists will apply their quantitative skills to design innovative experiments and interpret massive data sets that may help solve important biological and clinical problems.

COVID-19 related laboratory shutdowns threaten to derail scientists in the critical earliest stages of their careers. In response, the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation is extending funding for those Damon Runyon scientists most affected by the current crisis, totaling an additional investment of up to $1,170,000 during the upcoming fiscal year. Watch our webinar as our scientists discuss the challenges of doing research during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Seven Damon Runyon alumni were elected to the National Academy of Sciences (the science “Hall of Fame”), one of the highest honors that can be given to a U.S. scientist. This brings the total number of Damon Runyon scientists who are members of the National Academy of Sciences to 86.

Damon Runyon-Gordon Family Clinical Investigator Geoffrey R. Oxnard, MD; Board Member Michael V. Seiden, MD, PhD; and colleagues published results of a new blood test that can detect more than 50 types of cancer, often before symptoms develop. This may give patients and doctors a huge advantage and opportunity to treat the disease before it reaches advanced stages.

Former Damon Runyon Fellow Aaron D. Viny, MD, cares for people with leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) at Memorial Sloan Kettering as an oncologist specializing in blood cancers. Recently, Dr. Viny spent two weeks treating cancer patients in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Here are his reflections, from his twitter thread, as a physician-scientist at a unique time in medical history.